Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Network Outages for March 24 and March 25
4:15 PM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
This Sunday evening, March 24, at about 11:00 p.m., we will commence a big project to ready our community for major advancements in the way healthcare is delivered, but that project will cause widespread interruptions to your cable television and internet services for a few hours.
We are proud to have been chosen by T.J. Samson Community Hospital as their vendor/partner for their high speed network connections between the new Healthcare Pavilion and the main hospital, and also to the outside world. We have been feverishly installing new fiber optic cables all over town to provide multiple layers of redundancy for the new medical network, and now we are ready to reconfigure our Jama M Young Technology Center (JMYTC) to accept and terminate the new circuits.
The work has been scheduled during the late evening of Sunday March 24 and the early morning hours of Monday March 25, in the hope that our customers will be least inconvenienced during those hours. Our team will be doing tedious fiber optic cable splicing inside JMYTC and on the street outside our campus during those hours. Half of all EPB customers will be affected, anywhere from one hour to about seven hours. This work will impact both cable television and internet services.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we are also thrilled that our community is going to have such a sophisticated medical network environment. Stay tuned to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board Facebook page for additional updates on this project.
We are proud to have been chosen by T.J. Samson Community Hospital as their vendor/partner for their high speed network connections between the new Healthcare Pavilion and the main hospital, and also to the outside world. We have been feverishly installing new fiber optic cables all over town to provide multiple layers of redundancy for the new medical network, and now we are ready to reconfigure our Jama M Young Technology Center (JMYTC) to accept and terminate the new circuits.
The work has been scheduled during the late evening of Sunday March 24 and the early morning hours of Monday March 25, in the hope that our customers will be least inconvenienced during those hours. Our team will be doing tedious fiber optic cable splicing inside JMYTC and on the street outside our campus during those hours. Half of all EPB customers will be affected, anywhere from one hour to about seven hours. This work will impact both cable television and internet services.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we are also thrilled that our community is going to have such a sophisticated medical network environment. Stay tuned to the Glasgow Electric Plant Board Facebook page for additional updates on this project.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Spring, and EPB Network Updates, Just Around the Bend
The calendar says that spring is just
around the corner, and we are ready for it, because we have a lot of work to do.
Right along with nature’s transition, your EPB team is also planning a spring
full of construction and maintenance to our networks. Some of that activity
will impact the products you purchase from us, so this message is an update on
the upcoming activities.
Over the next several weeks you will
see several notices from us regarding internet, cable television, and electric
power projects that might impact you. As we have been saying for some time, the
very best way to stay abreast of these events in real-time is to “like” our
Facebook page at www.facebook.com/glasgowepb This page has
become the easiest way for us to move timely information out to all 15,000 of
our customers.
The biggest upcoming potential impact
on your internet services comes from a variety of sources. We now connect
Glasgow to the world through high capacity circuits from Windstream and
AT&T, but we are about to add a third source via our partnership with other
cities called MuniNet. Very soon MuniNet connectivity will add a new internet
access point from Level3 in Nashville. Upcoming maintenance activity from
Windstream and AT&T may cause some night time interruptions, or slow downs,
to your internet service from EPB. At the same time, upcoming additional
bandwidth from Level3 should, after our initial testing of the new connections,
enhance your internet throughput significantly. Though
all three of these issues will result in improvements to our product, like all
construction projects, getting through the changes may prove a bit bumpy. Stay
tuned to our Facebook page and our Twitter feed https://twitter.com/glasgowepb
for updates.
We have other network projects that
will affect you as well. In an effort to establish multiple redundant fiber
circuits for TJ Samson Hospital and the new TJ Healthcare Pavilion, we will be
adding new fiber routes into our JMYTC Technology Center at the EPB offices.
That work, and the splicing necessary to incorporate it into the city wide
network, will cause some both cable and internet interruptions, mainly during
the wee hours of the morning, for several hours.
Finally, we also have a couple of large
electric power network projects that may affect you, especially as you drive
around the neighborhoods surrounding our Front Street Substation. Over the next
couple of months a line construction contractor will be performing work doing
what we call “reconductoring.” As the cost of energy has risen over the
decades, we find that some smaller conductors which usually carry large amounts
of current, are simply no longer economically efficient. The upcoming work will
consist of removing the smaller conductors near Front Street Substation and
replacing those with much larger capacity conductors.
We join you in welcoming spring to
Glasgow! Hopefully, spring, along with these projects, will bring us much more
benefits than frustrations.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Merry Christmas from Glasgow EPB!
We don’t claim to be in direct contact with your Elf on the Shelf, but we do have reliable information that many of you have added, or soon will be adding, new internet connected devices to your homes. Check under all of that mess of boxes and shredded wrapping paper in your living room! The EPB elves have also been considering how good you have been this year, and we are going to do our part to support the Elf and help make your new devices totally rock. Whatever speed internet service you presently purchase from us, that speed is about to double, and the increase is going to take place at no additional cost to you!
Popular devices like AppleTV, Roku boxes, and any other new device that is going to stream movies or video via the internet to your computer or television, consume many times more bandwidth that what you needed back when you first got your internet service from us. Even though we have repeatedly increased the speed and capacity of our cable modems over the years, the volume of data involved with streaming a high definition movie to your home via that cable modem almost always outstrips the capacity of our regular 5 MB internet service that 90% of our customers still use. So, before you move from opening those devices, to installing them, the internet service to your home is going to be upgraded for you, by us.
Now, for some of you, even doubling your present internet speed might not be enough if your home is an early adopter of many of the latest streaming technologies. If that is the case, we have solutions for you as well. We have two tiers of internet speed that are even faster than the base product that will soon provide 10MB service to the thousands of Glasgow homes and businesses that use our basic product (and all of those speeds are being doubled as well). Just give us a call or examine our website for more information about these even higher speed products.
In most cases, you will not even need to call us for this year’s upgrade to arrive at your home. The process is quite simple, and will happen during the night. You don’t even need a chimney! Your present cable modem has already been reprogrammed, from our office, to deliver the higher speed. All you have to do to implement the higher speed service is to unplug the power cord for about one minute, and then plug it back in. Within minutes the modem will download the new operating file and you will be in the fast lane. In some rare cases, if you still have one of the old gray cable modems, we need to replace those for the higher speed, but that is also very easy. You can just bring it by our office and we will swap your old modem for one of the newer ones.
The EPB Elves have been working for months trying to get our network upgraded so that we can deliver this present to our customers. We only got the last piece of this in place this week. Now we can be a big part of delivering the games, movies, YouTube videos, or whatever content you expect to receive from your new toy, flawlessly and quickly. We know that, with everything else going on over the upcoming holidays, you want things to work as advertised. Getting the higher speed internet service from Glasgow EPB can work magic, just like that Elf on the Shelf!
Popular devices like AppleTV, Roku boxes, and any other new device that is going to stream movies or video via the internet to your computer or television, consume many times more bandwidth that what you needed back when you first got your internet service from us. Even though we have repeatedly increased the speed and capacity of our cable modems over the years, the volume of data involved with streaming a high definition movie to your home via that cable modem almost always outstrips the capacity of our regular 5 MB internet service that 90% of our customers still use. So, before you move from opening those devices, to installing them, the internet service to your home is going to be upgraded for you, by us.
Now, for some of you, even doubling your present internet speed might not be enough if your home is an early adopter of many of the latest streaming technologies. If that is the case, we have solutions for you as well. We have two tiers of internet speed that are even faster than the base product that will soon provide 10MB service to the thousands of Glasgow homes and businesses that use our basic product (and all of those speeds are being doubled as well). Just give us a call or examine our website for more information about these even higher speed products.
In most cases, you will not even need to call us for this year’s upgrade to arrive at your home. The process is quite simple, and will happen during the night. You don’t even need a chimney! Your present cable modem has already been reprogrammed, from our office, to deliver the higher speed. All you have to do to implement the higher speed service is to unplug the power cord for about one minute, and then plug it back in. Within minutes the modem will download the new operating file and you will be in the fast lane. In some rare cases, if you still have one of the old gray cable modems, we need to replace those for the higher speed, but that is also very easy. You can just bring it by our office and we will swap your old modem for one of the newer ones.
The EPB Elves have been working for months trying to get our network upgraded so that we can deliver this present to our customers. We only got the last piece of this in place this week. Now we can be a big part of delivering the games, movies, YouTube videos, or whatever content you expect to receive from your new toy, flawlessly and quickly. We know that, with everything else going on over the upcoming holidays, you want things to work as advertised. Getting the higher speed internet service from Glasgow EPB can work magic, just like that Elf on the Shelf!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sandy Hits the New York Area, and Maybe Us
Hurricane Sandy, the "Frankenstorm" about to hit the New York area, could also have considerable impacts right here in Glasgow. We are already getting warnings from cable programmers like ESPN, that we may face extended outages. Though we don't need to board up our windows here in Glasgow, we do need to prepare.
Though our technology normally functions so well that we completely ignore it, the truth is that beaming live television events to cable systems all over the world involves unbelievably intricate devices working flawlessly, and continuously. For example, when you watch a sporting event on ESPN or a live news program from CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox, there are satellite earth-stations, many of which are in New York or other places in the northeast, beaming that programming to a satellite parked 22,236 miles over our heads. In turn, that satellite retransmits that programming down to satellite receivers at cable systems and local broadcast stations in thousands of cities across our land. Hundreds of pieces of technology are involved to make these seemingly simple events appear in our homes.
If any component in that route breaks down, your normal television programming is affected. In the case of Sandy coming in right now, the liklihood of breakdown of the satellite uplinks seems considerable. This is something you should know and prepare for.
Of course, we all know power outages to the folks along the coastal areas is assured. Normally their problems would not affect us in Glasgow, but it is not beyond imagination for us to be impacted. The TVA power grid, to which we are attached, is also interconnected with many power grids that will be greatly affected by Sandy. Though unlikely, sometimes trouble in a neighboring grid can ripple out to cause trouble here. Even if the TVA grid is not immediately affected, we will all surely be impacted by the amount of damage about to be done and the amount of electric power distribution hardware which will be consumed to repair the damage. It is likely that we will have trouble finding some conductor and hardware items for the next several weeks, and that can certainly impact our ongoing work to maintain the electric system here in Glasgow.
Finally, spend a bit of time thinking about how the internet might be impacted by Sandy. The area where the storm is hitting is the point where most of the transatlantic cables depart North America headed for other continents. That same area houses dozens of the servers and routers that make your favorite web sites available to us here in Glasgow. If those servers farms should flood or lose power for extended times, our internet service right here in Glasgow will be impacted. It is time to make plans for that as well.
We hope all of our fellow countrymen along the storm's track have good luck and that the plans they have made are effective. This storm is going to present unprecedented problems for us all. I hope we are all ready.
Though our technology normally functions so well that we completely ignore it, the truth is that beaming live television events to cable systems all over the world involves unbelievably intricate devices working flawlessly, and continuously. For example, when you watch a sporting event on ESPN or a live news program from CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox, there are satellite earth-stations, many of which are in New York or other places in the northeast, beaming that programming to a satellite parked 22,236 miles over our heads. In turn, that satellite retransmits that programming down to satellite receivers at cable systems and local broadcast stations in thousands of cities across our land. Hundreds of pieces of technology are involved to make these seemingly simple events appear in our homes.
If any component in that route breaks down, your normal television programming is affected. In the case of Sandy coming in right now, the liklihood of breakdown of the satellite uplinks seems considerable. This is something you should know and prepare for.
Of course, we all know power outages to the folks along the coastal areas is assured. Normally their problems would not affect us in Glasgow, but it is not beyond imagination for us to be impacted. The TVA power grid, to which we are attached, is also interconnected with many power grids that will be greatly affected by Sandy. Though unlikely, sometimes trouble in a neighboring grid can ripple out to cause trouble here. Even if the TVA grid is not immediately affected, we will all surely be impacted by the amount of damage about to be done and the amount of electric power distribution hardware which will be consumed to repair the damage. It is likely that we will have trouble finding some conductor and hardware items for the next several weeks, and that can certainly impact our ongoing work to maintain the electric system here in Glasgow.
Finally, spend a bit of time thinking about how the internet might be impacted by Sandy. The area where the storm is hitting is the point where most of the transatlantic cables depart North America headed for other continents. That same area houses dozens of the servers and routers that make your favorite web sites available to us here in Glasgow. If those servers farms should flood or lose power for extended times, our internet service right here in Glasgow will be impacted. It is time to make plans for that as well.
We hope all of our fellow countrymen along the storm's track have good luck and that the plans they have made are effective. This storm is going to present unprecedented problems for us all. I hope we are all ready.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Arrival of Fall Means Some Cable Interruptions
The delivery of cable television
programming bounced off of an orbiting satellite is an amazingly useful
and reliable way to get a wide variety of entertainment, but, twice a
year, it has some hiccups. Over the next several days those hiccups will
affect your television viewing for ten to fifteen minutes per day. Then
it will happen again in late spring as we look forward to summer again.
During the equinoxes, as the apparent path of the sun across our sky moves from the northern latitudes toward the southern ones (bringing with it Autumn), our satellite dish has trouble picking up the signals from the satellites out in space which are transmitting the cable programming. Anyone who has driven by our offices, and observed the giant dish looking at the southern sky, has seen the technology we use to deliver most of the cable channels you see in your homes. Except for about eighteen days per year, that dish easily receives those signals from a number of satellites parked out about 22,000 miles in the sky. Of course this applies only to the cable channels delivered via satellite. The ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and other network channels come in over the air to a conventional antenna and that transmission is not seasonally affected.
On those other days, the sun actually moves directly into a line stretching from the sun, to the satellites and then to our dish behind 100 Mallory Drive in Glasgow, Kentucky. For the time that those three elements line up (normally about 20 minutes per day), the satellite dish is blinded by the sun and cannot "see" the satellite. That results in your cable programming getting sparkles in it, then progressively getting worse until it actually falls apart for a few minutes. Then, as the earth rotates and the satellite reappears from the glare, the programming starts returning to normal gradually.
So, over the next few days, anytime between 10:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. you might see this happening. Do not be alarmed. It just means that Fall is arriving in Glasgow!
During the equinoxes, as the apparent path of the sun across our sky moves from the northern latitudes toward the southern ones (bringing with it Autumn), our satellite dish has trouble picking up the signals from the satellites out in space which are transmitting the cable programming. Anyone who has driven by our offices, and observed the giant dish looking at the southern sky, has seen the technology we use to deliver most of the cable channels you see in your homes. Except for about eighteen days per year, that dish easily receives those signals from a number of satellites parked out about 22,000 miles in the sky. Of course this applies only to the cable channels delivered via satellite. The ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and other network channels come in over the air to a conventional antenna and that transmission is not seasonally affected.
On those other days, the sun actually moves directly into a line stretching from the sun, to the satellites and then to our dish behind 100 Mallory Drive in Glasgow, Kentucky. For the time that those three elements line up (normally about 20 minutes per day), the satellite dish is blinded by the sun and cannot "see" the satellite. That results in your cable programming getting sparkles in it, then progressively getting worse until it actually falls apart for a few minutes. Then, as the earth rotates and the satellite reappears from the glare, the programming starts returning to normal gradually.
So, over the next few days, anytime between 10:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. you might see this happening. Do not be alarmed. It just means that Fall is arriving in Glasgow!
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Get Involved in Planning Glasgow's Future
Where do you like to go for a little vacation? Of the 15,000 folks living in Glasgow, there might also be thousands of different answers to that question, but I am going to guess that most of those places have something in common. I am guessing that those places have beautiful vistas, and shopping, and cool locally owned restaurants. I am also going to guess that those features are somehow connected by pedestrian friendly sidewalks and trails. I bet there are a lot of bicycles around as well.
There is a move afoot to plan similar facilities for us to use when we are at home, right here in Glasgow. If that idea interests you at all, positively or negatively, you need to get involved. The professionals at our Joint City-County Planning Commission are working on a master plan for alternative transportation (often called a “greenway”) in and around Glasgow. As this process continues, they are asking (begging) the public to get involved by coming to some meetings to discuss the plan. The first meeting is on August 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Glasgow City Council Chambers.
The work ongoing right now is in the development of a long-range plan. No plans are actually being drawn to begin physical construction of anything. Rather, the group is working to identify goals and objectives, and gather input from the community on just what forms of alternate transportation plans they would like the local governments to be considering. You can click on this link http://www.glasgow-ky.com/planning/ to go the information already gathered by Kevin Myatt and his team. They would also love for you to click on the link to the survey on the same page and take a few minutes to answer some questions about how you might interact with a Glasgow Greenway.
Thanks for your attention to this very important project.
There is a move afoot to plan similar facilities for us to use when we are at home, right here in Glasgow. If that idea interests you at all, positively or negatively, you need to get involved. The professionals at our Joint City-County Planning Commission are working on a master plan for alternative transportation (often called a “greenway”) in and around Glasgow. As this process continues, they are asking (begging) the public to get involved by coming to some meetings to discuss the plan. The first meeting is on August 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Glasgow City Council Chambers.
The work ongoing right now is in the development of a long-range plan. No plans are actually being drawn to begin physical construction of anything. Rather, the group is working to identify goals and objectives, and gather input from the community on just what forms of alternate transportation plans they would like the local governments to be considering. You can click on this link http://www.glasgow-ky.com/planning/ to go the information already gathered by Kevin Myatt and his team. They would also love for you to click on the link to the survey on the same page and take a few minutes to answer some questions about how you might interact with a Glasgow Greenway.
Thanks for your attention to this very important project.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Beware of the Latest Fraud Attempt
Fraud
Alert
Consumers are being contacted via
telephone, fliers, e-mails and text messages and various other means. Scammers request the consumer’s Social
Security Number (SSN), financial institution routing number and
account number in order to send the money to the consumer. In return, the
consumers are given a fraudulent financial institution routing number to use in
order to pay their utility bills through an automated telephone service.
The payment service initially seems to
accept the payment and the consumer receives a payment confirmation
notice. Once the settlement processing
between banks begins, the payment is declined due to invalid banking
information. The consumer’s bill has not been paid and his/her SSN and personal
financial information have been compromised.
Never provide your personal
information and banking information to anyone who may call you claiming to be
from the Glasgow EPB, or anyone else. We do not request
this type of information from our customers to pay utility bills.
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